Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 3: Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu said on Monday that community service should be made mandatory for students in both public and private institutions since it will help them develop a sharing and caring attitude in their interactions with others.
“Today, there is a dire need to inculcate the spirit of service from a young age in the youth of this country. Once this pandemic is behind us and normalcy returns, I would suggest that government schools as well as those in the private sector must make community service of at least two to three weeks compulsory for students,” the Vice President said.
He was addressing as the special guest at a celebration held near here to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the death of St Kuriakose Elias Chavara, a spiritual leader and social reformer from Kerala’s Catholic community.
The Vice President stated that instilling a spirit of service in children at an early age will help them develop a sharing and caring attitude in their interactions with others.
“As a matter-of-fact, the philosophy of share-and-care is at the core of India’s age-old culture and must be widely propagated. For us, the whole world is one family as encapsulated in our timeless ideal, ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’. It is with this spirit that we should move forward together,” Naidu said.
The Vice President praised the achievements of visionary spiritual leaders such as Sree Narayana Guru, a great social reformer, and St Chavara in many sectors, and urged other states to learn from Kerala in the areas of education, social justice, and women’s empowerment.
“I would like to take this opportunity to urge other states to take a cue from Kerala in the fields of education, social justice and women’s empowerment as outlined in the pioneering initiatives of Saint Chavara and Narayana Guru. Their pathbreaking work proves that every state can be transformed into an engine of growth and progress and that this can be achieved through the social and educational empowerment of women and youth belonging to poorer sections of society,” Naidu said.
As spelled forth in the ideology of Antyodaya articulated by visionary thinker, activist, and reformer Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, the advantages of progress must filter down to the last man in the most backward and destitute areas of our socio-economic structure.
Despite the fact that Saint Chavara’s identity and vision were fashioned and formed by the values of his Catholic religion, his social and educational activities were not limited to the progress and development of that community alone, according to Naidu.
“Saint Chavara combined the spirit of the renaissance with the mission of charity and noble Christian concept of universal brotherhood,” the Vice President said and expressed happiness over the involvement of these congregations founded by him in the educational and health fields in the country.
